


Quanta:  Six Tom Paris/Chakotay First Kisses

by phinnia



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-05 06:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16805443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phinnia/pseuds/phinnia
Summary: I'm kind of obsessed now.   I just do these.   It's a thing.





	1. Chapter 1

The first first kiss was when they were back in the Maquis.  
  
They were on Chakotay’s ship on Tom’s first night aboard and Tom was looking for someplace to put his stuff. He didn’t have a _lot_ of stuff, but he _liked_ the stuff he had, and he didn’t want it to get damaged in some kind of firefight. Besides, bed space was at a premium, unless he wanted to bunk with Suder, and there was something _weird_ about Suder. (Rules were that nobody had to bunk with Suder for more than a week; a _lot_ of people thought there was something _weird_ about Suder.)  
  
He wedged past B’Elanna in the narrow hallway, smiling at her (didn’t do any good, but Tom always thought it was better to smile than not) and poked his head in a room.  
  
Chakotay was in there, looking over something on a padd.  
  
“Oh, sorry.” He turns around to go.  
  
“Hey, Paris.”  
  
He turns back. “Yeah?”  
  
“Pretty good flying you did today.”  
  
Tom grins. “ _Told you_ I was good.”   
  
“You were right.” One eyebrow quirks up. “ _What else_ are you good at?”  
  
Tom tilts his head to the side and runs his tongue over his top lip, thoughtfully. He watches Chakotay watch that. “I can give you a written _list_ , or I can _tell_ you, or I can _show_ you. It depends on how you _want it_.” He saunters inside the room. “How _do_ you _want it_? You like to _watch_ , or _listen_ , or do you want the _whole experience_?”  
  
“I think I’ll go for the whole experience.” Chakotay grabs his shoulders and slams him against the mattress on the floor.  
  
Tom doesn’t expect kissing, because there usually isn’t any, but there is this time. It’s hot and messy and it’s more like biting than kissing, and they wrestle for who gets to be on top.  
  
Then somebody fires on the ship and the whole thing shakes.  
  
“God _damn it_.” Tom swears under his breath, and scrambles to his feet.   
  
Chakotay grumbles something under his breath and gets up. “Later.”  
  
“Damn right later. Assuming we don’t get killed before I fly us out of this, that is.”  
  
  
  
The second first time was a couple of weeks after the Maquis had arrived aboard Voyager.  
  
Chakotay was walking the halls of this new ship, trying to figure out where everything was, and he came across Tom in an empty observation lounge. He watched for a minute, admiring - the phrase _long tall drink of water_ wanders through his mind - and then says something. “Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?”  
  
He can see the slightest shade of Paris’s face in the window. “I got out of the habit of sleeping much. Too many nightmares.”  
  
“You could take something.”  
  
The slightest shake of a head. “I hate sleeping meds. They just make me feel weird the next day.”  
  
“Delta-wave inducer?”  
  
“Those never work on me for some reason.” he laughs. “Too paranoid.”  
  
“I guess meditation is _definitely_ out for you, then.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s also a big no. The only things that _actually_ work are sex and running. I guess I could try doing laps around one of the cargo bays, that would be … probably _really_ boring.”  
  
Chakotay thinks back to his youth. “Tea?”  
  
“I don’t drink tea.”  
  
“Ever tried it?”  
  
Another headshake.  
  
“Well, come on, then.” He steers Paris down the hall. “We can’t have you falling asleep at the conn tomorrow.”  
  
  
Chakotay looks at Tom Paris staring into his mug of tea.  
  
He looks awfully suspicious of it.  
  
“Is it _supposed_ to look like baby piss?” he says doubtfully.  
  
He chokes on his own, laughing. “Yes, actually. It doesn’t _taste_ like baby piss, I promise.”  
  
“There are little bits of -“  
  
“That’s just chamomile. My mother used to give this to my younger sisters when they were colicky. It’s not poison, I swear.”  
  
“Replicators won’t produce poison.” He sips it. “I know that from working in Sickbay. Ow.”  
  
“Let it cool off for a few minutes. Honey?”  
  
“Yes, darling?”  
  
Chakotay sets his mug down on the table and coughs. “Just asking you if you wanted some. Honey, that is. The sweetener. For your tea.”  
  
“Oh.” He could see Paris’s face flushing a bright pink. “I knew that.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“I totally knew that.”  
  
“Absolutely.”  
  
“Just being … dumb.” Now he’s looking sideways at Chakotay. “You know. Like people are sometimes.”  
  
“I wouldn’t call it dumb, exactly.” He looks sideways back. Yes, long tall drink of water indeed. “More like a … tactical error. People make those all the time. Especially if you haven’t been sleeping much.”  
  
“Almost failed Tactics.” Half a smile. “Pissed off my dad. Too busy chasing skirts.”  
  
“ _Just_ skirts?” Chakotay whispers in his ear.  
  
“ _Usually_ skirts.” He murmurs in reply. “‘M a flexible guy, though, doesn’t really matter.”   
  
Their lips touch. At first it is gentle, seeking, and then it is not-so-gentle. Chakotay finds that Tom Paris tastes like the slightest hint of chamomile tea and desire and generic Starfleet tooth cleaner, and he wonders how he tastes himself. Maybe he’ll ask later.   
  
The tea gets cold.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "‘Iwllj jachjaj" translates to "your mouth will scream".

The third first kiss was in the holodeck, and it was because of mistletoe, because there’s always one of those somewhere in time.  
  
Tom didn’t put the mistletoe in Sandrine’s. That was Neelix - he’d put it there last week. He wasn’t really paying attention - he was reading the padd he was carrying - and he just sort of wandered in.  
  
A slight cough. “Lieutenant?”  
  
Tom turned around. “Me?”  
  
Chakotay’s standing in the door. “Well, I don’t see any _other_ lieutenants around.”  
  
Tom keeps walking, but he hears that cough again.   
  
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”  
  
He looks down. Damnit, is my zipper undone? No, doesn’t look like it. He turns around again. What was he - _oh_. The _mistletoe_. Right.   
  
He smiles broadly, and gives Chakotay a big kiss right on the lips.  
  
He wasn’t really intending it to _mean_ anything.   
  
But … it was pretty good.  
  
Okay, it was _really_ good. And Chakotay smelled nice - he used some kind of soap that he used, it was spicy - and he was a pretty good kisser - well, no, he was a _really good_ kisser, Tom realized.   
  
Another cough. “Do you guys mind making out _not_ in the doorway?”  
  
Tom looks down at a smirking B’Elanna Torres. He gives her a kiss on the cheek.  
  
“I mean, not like the rest of us don’t mind watching and everything, I know _I_ don’t mind …”  
  
Chakotay buries his face in his hands. Tom starts laughing and drags him over to a reasonably secluded table.  
  
  
The fourth first kiss was just after Paris got back from figuring out who the traitor was. Chakotay caught him sauntering - it wasn’t walking, it was definitely _sauntering_ \- down the hall with that irritating fuck-you slant to his hips, and Great Spirit, was that a _smirk_? It was.  
  
But Paris just raised one eyebrow as he passed by. “Commander.”  
  
“Paris.” he grumbled under his breath.  
  
“Was there something?”   
  
“No.” he replied shortly.  
  
“Bullshit.”   
  
Chakotay whirls on his heel. “ _Excuse me, lieutenant?_ ”  
  
Paris looks at him with a perfectly charming smile. “I said ‘bullshit’. Don’t get pissed at _me_ because the captain and Tuvok didn’t let you in on the plan. It wasn’t _my_ fault. I did exactly what she _told_ me to do. I was ad-libbing all the way.”  
  
“Did you have to enjoy being such a fucking _dick_ about it?”  
  
“You would have, in my place.” He has the slightest edges of a grin tracing his mouth. “Stand there and tell me honestly you wouldn’t.”  
  
And Chakotay can’t. Because he knows - he knows - that if the positions were reversed, he would have probably been sauntering and smirking himself.  
  
“C’mon.” Tom smiles, an honest smile now. “One of the Talaxians gave me a bottle of something, could be anything. Want a drink?”  
  
Chakotay sighs. “Sure, what the hell.”  
  
  
The bottle of ‘something’ is some unlabelled purple stuff that Tom swapped some extra fruits that Neelix had sent with him for.   
  
Tom held up his glass. “To the death of Michael Jonas. And B’Elanna’s warp core, that killed him. ‘Iwllj jachjaj.”  
  
Chakotay clinked his own glass against Tom’s. “Good riddance.”  
  
“Damn right.” He drinks about half the purple stuff in his glass and starts coughing. “Wheeew! Shit, that is not grape juice.”  
  
Chakotay gulps some of it. It burns like a plasma fire going down. “Damn. This makes _Romulan ale_ look tame.”  
  
“Stalwart, upright man like you has had _Romulan ale_? I can’t believe it.” Paris’s eyes are twinkling.  
  
“I was crawling out of bars when you were still crawling, Paris.” he snickers. “Didn’t know you knew Klingon toasts. Ever thought of knocking boots with our chief engineer?”  
  
“I like all my organs on the inside, thanks, and my bones right where they’re meant to be. I break enough of ‘em on away missions. I thought Seska was going to take me apart.” The helmsman rolled his eyes and slumped on a sofa. “That woman put the ‘itch’ in ‘bitch’, I’m telling ya. What did you _see_ in _her_?”  
  
“Honestly?” Chakotay took another gulp of his mystery purple drink and sat down beside him. “She was _there_. Not my type. Too damn shrill.”  
  
“You’re telling _me_.” Paris topped off his own drink, and topped off Chakotay’s after he nodded.  
  
  
After three glasses of this weird purple stuff, everything looked good. Even Paris. Well, if he had to admit it to himself, Paris had looked good for a while. It was just his smart mouth that had been the problem.  
  
It was pretty, but too damn smart.  
  
“What’re you starin’ at?” Paris says drunkenly.   
  
“You.” Chakotay replies, chuckling.  
  
“What the hell for?”  
  
“If you shut that smart mouth, you’re not bad lookin’, you know?”   
  
“Oh yeah?” He’s half grinning. “You’re not that bad when you shut your goddamn trap about Starfleet regs.”  
  
“ _Can_ you stop being such a smart ass?”  
  
“Doubt it.” A mischevious grin. “Nobody’s ever stopped me before.”  
  
“Let me try.” Chakotay leans over and kisses him, hard and sloppy. Paris tastes like that purple stuff, which is made of those Talaxian fruits and some kind of herbs and probably Talaxian spices. He feels those pretty lips relax against his, and start kissing him back. Paris slides his tongue along Chakotay’s lower lip, and Chakotay bites Paris’s lower lip and hears a slight gasp.  
  
The rest of the bottle gets finished later.


	3. Chapter 3

The fifth first kiss was in a shuttlecraft, and in the middle of an argument.  
  
Tom was piloting it when the whole damn thing just _died_ in space.  
  
“What did you _do_?” He shouts over his shoulder.  
  
“I didn’t ‘do’ _anything_!” Chakotay shouts back from behind him.  
  
“What do you mean, you didn’t do _anything_? You must have done _something_ , _I_ sure as hell didn’t _do anything_! _I_ was trying to _fly_ this _damn brick_!”  
  
“I thought you could _fly anything_! You _told me_ you could _fly anything_! _Best pilot_ in the Quadrant, _you said!_ ” Chakotay was glaring into his face, dark eyes hard as flint.  
  
“Yeah, well, _obviously_ I didn’t mean _this Quadrant_!” Tom glares frozen ice back at him. “And I don’t _habitually_ fly _dead bricks_!”  
  
“Will you _shut up_ for _once in your life_?” Chakotay leans over the conn seat and kisses him. Tom’s surprised, but not that surprised, and nobody ever threw anything at Tom Paris he can’t adjust to on a minute’s notice. He kisses back, hot and eager, and wonders who Janeway’s going to blame _this_ shuttlecraft accident on.  
  
As it turns out, it was a natural malfunction because of the area of space they were in, and it cleared up ten minutes later.  
  
  
The last first kiss was because of a triple raktajino, some nightmares, and a Jeffries tube. Jeffries tube 17-B, to be exact.  
  
That one was fairly narrow, even for a Jeffries tube, and it ran laterally under one of the aft observation decks. They were fixing half a dozen blown EPS relays after they re-took the ship from the Kazon.   
  
At least that’s what _Chakotay_ was doing. _Paris_ was lurking towards the end of the Jeffries tube.  
  
“Are you _trying_ to get off shift early?” He tries not to sound irritated, but it was difficult when you were looking for tools in dim light and had absolutely no help at all. “Or are you just trying to see how _unhelpful_ you can _possibly be_?”  
  
“Look, will you just _not_ \- I hate this particular Jeffries tube, and I _didn’t_ get a lot of sleep last night.”  
  
“Did you actually _catch_ Jenny Delaney?”   
  
“No.” Was Paris’s voice actually _shaking_? It _was_. “Nightmares. Bad couple of days. Shuttle accident.”  
  
Oh, shit. _Shit_.   
  
Chakotay takes a deep breath and sets down the tools, crawls over to the end of the tube, puts his hand on Paris’s shoulder. “How many years ago?”  
  
“Five.”  
  
He winces, despite himself. “Those ones are bad.”  
  
“They’re _all_ bad.”   
  
Chakotay chances a look at Paris’s face. Paler than usual. Dark rings under the bloodshot blue eyes.   
  
A slight huff of a laugh. “Doesn’t help that I’m claustrophobic.”   
  
Chakotay smiles to himself. “You’re _claustrophobic_ and you work and live on a _starship_. Which is a moving, hermetically sealed _box_ , creating its own _atmosphere_ , flying through the vacuum of _space_ -“  
  
Paris gives him a look. “ _Thanks_. I try to forget about that part.” A long, shuddering sigh. “Are we done?”  
  
“Yeah.” Chakotay nods. “They’re all fixed. Let me grab the tools.”  
  
Another sigh, and Paris unfolds himself into the corridor.   
  
“I’ll get you a coffee or a tea or something.” he says.   
  
“Sure. Let me put these tools back in Engineering, I’ll meet you in the mess.”   
  
Chakotay drops the tool kit off and meets Paris at a corner table. Paris himself is staring into the void of his coffee cup.  
  
“Trying to see into your future?” Chakotay jokes.  
  
“I hope my future includes a nap.” Damn, he looks tired. “You get to the point where a triple raktajino does nothing for you. Right, I said I’d get you a tea.”  
  
“Darjeeling would be nice. Two sugars, no milk.”  
  
He slurps some of his raktajino and wanders over to the replicator, returning with a mug full of tea.  
  
“So what _is_ my future?”   
  
“Well, I _think_ you have tomorrow off.” Chakotay blows gently on his tea.  
  
“Oh, right.” Another slurp of raktajino. “Maybe I can just _sleep_ all day. Nah. Probably end up with more nightmares. You know what? They don’t get any better. Did you know that if the fire’s hot enough, you can hear eyeballs exploding?” He just says that, matter-of-factly, like it’s a thing that happens to everybody. “I can still hear that in my nightmares.”  
  
“I didn’t, no.”   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
He looks at Paris’s eyes, which are still bloodshot, and still staring into his coffee cup.   
  
“Anything help?”  
  
“With the nightmares? Not really.” A crooked smile.  
  
“What do you mean, ‘ _not really_ ’?”  
  
“Nothing _you_ can help me with.”  
  
“Why?” He sounds a little bitter, even to himself. “Because I’m not one of the Delaney sisters?”  
  
“Oh, I could give a damn about _gender_. I just don’t know if you like me enough.”  
  
“Who said I didn’t like you?”   
  
Paris - _Tom_ \- looks at him from under slightly lowered lashes. “Well, _you_ did. Or I _thought_ you did.”  
  
“Things change, you know.”  
  
Tom tips his head to one side thoughtfully, drinks the rest of his raktajino in one long swallow, and then leans across the table and kisses Chakotay.  
  
He tastes like a heavily sugared raktajino mixed someone who hasn’t had enough sleep, with faint overtones of curiosity.  
  
Chakotay licked one of Tom’s lips and thought about the helmsman as a cat. A very curious cat. With at least nine lives.  
  



End file.
